Thursday, May 30, 2013

Government Security Is a Joke

The whole alphabet soup of federal security agencies have become silly.

Take the TSA. Their pat down procedure is specifically designed to punish anyone who ops out of the X-ray scanner. It is invasive, abusive, and done in public for the amusement of others. Women are frequently chosen for the "enhanced" examination based not upon the possibility they are carrying a bomb and entirely upon how sexy they are. And they are completely useless, violate the Constitution, and amount to a sex crime. Horror stories abound.

Other airport security is even worse. The US Customs, for example, employs people who are not aware that Puerto Rico is part of the United States. They will search private planes with a casual disinterest because they have to log a certain number of searches but desperately not wanting to find anything because of all the paperwork that would follow.

Border crossing is equally bizarre. The San Ysidro (San Diego) border crossing often requires two and three hour waits what with the need to show passports and answer questions designed to identify smugglers, questions like "where were you born?" People who cross the border frequently, like smugglers, can purchase a SENTRI pass. For $122.25 they can skip the long waits with access to a special Fast Pass lane, avoid those annoying questions, and zip through the border with a flick of a fancy RFID card.

The government has spent billions building a Great Wall of China-like security fence along the border with Mexico. Before it was half finished drug cartels were digging tunnels under that wall using slave labor. In the past five years over 70 tunnels have been discovered. Very many more go undiscovered and continue operating. The fence has successfully prevented wildlife from crossing the border but humans remain undeterred.